A ‘For The Record’ Discussion On Musicians Receiving Just 12 Percent Of The Music Industry’s Revenue

Last week, Citigroup published a report revealing that musicians only earn a small share of the industry’s revenue. After money is distributed to music distribution platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music, record labels, concert promoters, and managers, artists are left with just 12 percent of the pie. On the latest episode of Genius' For The Record, Rob Markman sat down with Business Insider reporter John Lynch, entertainment attorney Tiffany Ballard, and Brooklyn rapper Dyme-A-Duzin to discuss the findings of the report.

“I was taken aback to see 12 percent was what artists were making of this 43 billion that the music industry was generating in total,” Lynch said. “Basically that 12 percent is up from past years, but it’s mostly due to touring. So artists are nowadays mostly making their money off of touring as opposed to purchased music, which is down quite a bit, and streaming.”

Ballard explained how she advises producers to get more leverage. “You have these things that are called producer decks, where you sign. You say, ‘Okay, you can use my song. I’ll get half now and the other half of the advance later. We’ll work out the technicalities later,’” she said. “One thing I try to do is say, ‘Okay, let’s not do a deck. Let’s go straight to the long-form agreement.’ That way, you have leverage because once you sign this deck, we can argue back-and-forth about points all day long.”

Meanwhile, Dyme-A-Duzin gave an artist’s perspective. “As much as this is an ever changing game, the game plan and the strategies also adjust within that,” he said. “It’s a digital age. A lot of effort goes into my merch, putting out merch… I put out projects with that attached to it, and that really helps me navigate.”

Check out the full discussion above and stay tuned next week for another new episode of For The Record.